Caeledh.5437

Awful - even worse than Herald and Renegade. Which I hadn't imagined possible. The promise of the base class is cooldown free utilities, limited only by energy. Me in control of my character rather than the other way around. Again, every utility has a cooldown, plus the weird kitten flipping mechanic. Plus side - it's the final death of any hope I might enjoy this profession one day.

Cheers for my first laugh out loud moment for the day. Seriously. Obviously they would work just fine without cooldowns.

Shifting the goalpost? Super weak. Cooldowns were not a part of their original design, as revealed to us.

Who said? I can't find any official lore on them and a quick google just finds other people also wondering. Yes I know that the ilk in their description this context could include dragon minions, but "dragon hunter" is a term most commonly used in the self-explanatory fashion. Which it isn't here. I have people over in the druid forum hilariously asserting that "theme" and visuals are irrelevant. In a graphical RPG. Words are maybe not as big a deal, but even putting aside their targets the "viciously purging" strikes me as at odds with the base profession. Seems you're right. https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics

Seems to still be true. https://gw2efficiency.com/account/player-statistics Least played at 4.73%

You know this is a business right? They rely on people enjoying their product to generate revenue. No not really. As one of the first responses pointed out and I agreed with, Ventari feels way more nature themed than druid. So there is a nature themed spec. It belongs to another prof. I replied to them that I'd play rev except that like ranger and the other profs I might play, ANet keep sucking all of the fun out with their elite specs. Personally I don't hate the idea of a new plant magic type elite spec, but that doesn't actually solve my problem and it creates another. Healing is a role I'm very into. LOATHING ranger's heal spec is a deal breaker. Also their other elite spec is a dud for me. I do not want to give up my pet. And while I'm into magic and plants, not everyone is into either of those, let alone both. Those people might see this as 3 out 3 elite specs not to their tastes. That's potentially very risky. Meanwhile, other elite specs like Scourge can function both for damage and healing. Regardless of how anyone feels about Druid's theme, I think it's inevitable that eventually they're tweaked for similar functional flexibility.

You work for them do you? Meanwhile there's reality. https://www.polygon.com/features/2015/2/18/8061219/guild-wars-2-profession-reveal-revenant-pc-mmo-arenanet When they first revealed them, there wasn't ANY mention of cooldowns. They were revealed as using energy. "Along with swapping between legends, the revenant profession will employ a second new mechanic that distances it from any other profession currently in the game: energy. In yet another callback to the first Guild Wars, all of the revenant's skills — both weapon and legend skills — will use a portion of the character's energy bar. While other classes only need to wait for a cooldown to reuse skills, revenants will need to wait for their energy bar to refill over time." Just need to wait for energy. No mention of CDs. Notice the UI screenshot. No sign of CDs there for either weapons or legend utilities. In fact, they describe one weapon ability in detail - Field of Mists - and they say it's a toggle. "That focus on range is also seen in Field of Mists, an upkeep skill that's exclusive to hammer-wielding revenants. When active, this skill will place a wall in front of the character that blocks incoming projectiles and moves with them." After having described upkeep skills as: "You make the choice to toggle it on, and while it's up it lowers your base energy regeneration," Cronacher says. "If your base regen is five energy per second and a skill costs seven in upkeep, it'll put you to negative two energy per second. So you're actually losing energy over time while the skill is active. You have the choice of leaving it active and running out of energy, or you can toggle into a new legend at any time. It offers a lot of freedom to players." i.e. weapon abilities will not have cooldowns! There was no mention of legend swap cooldown. "For example, Peters says the revenant will be able to use its currently-selected healing skill, then swap to its other equipped legend and use that legend's healing skill immediately." Also.... Cronacher says this is the perfect way to get enemies positioned into a line in order to maximize the impact of other attacks. However, it won't help with the aforementioned mace skill; since revenants can swap legends at any time, they will not be able to swap between two weapon types on the fly. Can swap legends at any time. We know they didn't have weapon swap cooldown. Because as detailed in the previous quote, like ele and engi they could only equip one. That was later added after testing feedback that many players felt that their legendary abilities alone didn't offer enough flexibility to deal with a ranged opponent while the rev was wielding a melee weapon.

The upside of my suggestion is you wouldn't experience any change. The defaults would allow existing druids to just keep playing exactly as is. A reskin alone would make a huge difference. I know that not everyone is a Sylvari, but seriously, I feel about 3000% less like a druid every time I transform from a gorgeous plant creature to.... a semi-transparent starry thing. I know that it would be out of line with those abilities, but from my point of view and I'm not alone, shroud is out of line with ranger. Shroud belongs to necro. People who play that class can at least tolerate that mechanic. Foisting it on other professions is crazy as. If druid's heal spec had been scourge, but plant themed, I might have been able to enjoy that. My suggestion also balanced customisation options like this accordingly. I would happily suffer a nerf to my heal power, eg. bringing it line with scourge who are perma heal mode. Nope. It's not an either or question. It's a both. In class based games with varying class mechanics, a class has to appeal both thematically and mechanically to be worth playing seriously. For my tastes, unfortunately GW2 is a hot mess in this department. This is why I've only kept a toe dipped in all these years. I don't have any serious hope of them fixing druid. But they might be aware that their forcing unwanted mechanics from alternate professions into elite specs is unpopular and hurting the game. Their recent rehiring of that previous senior guy and blogpost saying they were putting the focus back on players might be a good sign. And revisiting existing elites might even be a question they've put on the table, internally. To see if anyone can dream up viable solutions. Hence my posting.

So werebear? That could be interesting. And for all that some seem deathly allergic of the idea of greatswords, there is that awesome leafy greatsword skin. I wouldn't hate being able to use that. Pre PoF I really thought they'd have given us Eir. Female. Norn. Part of the story and someone everyone would recognise. Meanwhile, Kalla who? Personally I don't care about legend gender in the slightest, but at this point if they release a third female "elite" legend it might look unbalanced. Though if their goal was female supremacy, deviating from the base profession's much more appealing, largely cooldown free design was a huge mistake. But yeah. Svanir wearbear could be interesting.

As I've already said, theme is fundamental. This is a graphical RPG. I was completely up front and honest about loving nature stuff. You can't seriously be suggesting that I could have ANY clearer on that point. Lots of people share that love and get a kick out of nature type stuff in RPGs. I also gave an example from within GW2 of what people expect / want of druids. Celestial Avatar is a colossal swing and a miss.

The point and potential great of flexibility isn't only to satisfy some benchmark of adequacy for the profession. I explain it clearly in my OP but I'll say it again. It's to broaden its potential appeal. The more players who can enjoy it, the better. Most people won't throw money at ANet when they're not enjoying the game. GW's Druid is thematically not very druidic. Celestial Avatar form is a weird blue starry thing. And mechanically, with necro's shroud, it's also not to everyone tastes. As I explained in my OP, a major handicap of online games is that mistakes like this can't be easily reversed. You risk angering those players who do like whatever the mistake is. The ideal solution preserves the current gameplay while also offering others players what they want. And is relatively cheap to develop. My solution ticks all of these boxes. Players who like the current celestial avatar form could continue playing it exactly as it is. Players who want something which looks more traditionally druidic, i.e. plant or animal like, could also be happy. It'd be cheap - using as is or slightly modified existing assets and systems.

False. I've already quoted you saying this and anyone can scroll up to see that and your post. What could you hope by gain with these malicious and obvious lies? As is crystal clear from my original post, I said absolutely nothing about increasing the role of pets. What I suggested is that their UI and system could also be used to allow Druids to collect multiple spirit forms.

FYI freebie players have access to HoT. But I know what you mean. When you play a game long enough and it has a complex business model, which also changes over time, it's very easy to lose track of things like this. I only know the character limits because I recently looked them up online to see what free accounts get. And was surprised to see that paid accounts only get 5. I started playing at launch, and could easily have instantly ruled out 3 professions as thematically not to my tastes - warrior, thief and necromancer. I wouldn't have cared about that limit and it probably didn't register with me as significant. Since then I've bought extra slots. That's a brilliant idea. I completely forgot about that. Even not actually having anyone to heal, you can fire off all of the abilities and see for yourself how they feel and function. For the OP - there's a little crossed swords icon in the top left menu for entering the pvp lobby. I've been in a state of analysis paralysis for years. One of the downsides of games with different class mechanics is that to really love one, it needs to appeal both thematically and mechanically. GW2 fails for my tastes. If not for Sylvari being cool as hell and very much to my tastes, I'd have uninstalled and forgotten about it long ago. Revenant seemed like the answer to my prayers. Lots of cooldown free abilities and what cooldowns they have are modest. But then they started adding cooldowns to many of those abilities, and both elite specs have been crammed full of them. As good as the base prof is, I'm really reluctant to invest any effort in them. PoF elite specs in particular were dreadful. Not just for revenant. The other profs I'm somewhat interested in all got elite specs which made those profs less fun. I've made a few ascended weapons but have been sitting on armour mats. For many years. This event I'm finally bothering to level my thief to 80. Thematically not at all to my tastes, but CD free weapon abilities tickle my fancy. ANet tried to force the ammo system, which is essentially CD-lite onto thieves last expansion, and the thief community managed to make them remove it. Maybe with nice leafy weapons I can enjoy being a herbaceous ninja. And yeah, their EOD elite spec might appeal.

On second thoughts, I remembered a timely example of how you're wrong. This event, both out in the stampede and in the instanced boss thingy, you know what I've seen a lot? Players throwing down lots of fields around mobs, and then other players knocking mobs safely out of those fields. Safely for the mobs, not players. Repeatedly. Do you think they're trolling? Or compassionately trying to save the mobs? Nope. They're in frenzied cooldown whack-a-mole mode because that's what GW2's gameplay largely boils down to. Knowing the game for what it is, I don't get bothered or frustrated. Those players are just playing the game that was made for them.

Which corner is the entire staff of ArenaNet literally huddled in? And is that COVID safe?! Seriously though, no, initiative costs aren't exaggerated. They vary based on usefulness / power. That's called balance. I don't care if ANet literally suffers the pain of a thousand burning needles to balance stuff without CDs. I enjoy CD-free gameplay.

I agree. The MMO gold rush is far behind us. Lots of huge budget attempts were made to emulate WOW's success and most failed miserably. Even with huge IPs like Lord of the Rings. The second MMO version of that was canned earlier this year. Blizzard shelved the second MMO they had been developing and downgraded it into a shooter years ago. The industry is saturated with games and at this point I wouldn't be surprised if most MMO'ers aren't very interested in new games. Especially with all the time, money and effort they've invested in their current ones. GW2 is old and not perfect, but it's still being played and making money. Pumping money into upgrading GW2 might be a far safer investment than developing any new MMO.

False. Cooldowns restrict how often you can use a skill And essentially dictate a predetermined rotation of abilities which are optimal. Seriously good for you if you enjoy them. I don't and never will. We were talking thief and revenant, not daredevil and renegade. But anyway... On paper it can look like thief is opposite to revenant because thieves have CD free weapon abilities + utilities with CDs and revenants have weapon abilities with CDs and many utilities without, but because revenant is so inconsistent in this regard with legendary utilities (eg. renegage only has a single CD free legendary) and because of their get-free-energy-on-legend-swap ridiculousness, no it doesn't work out like that. Signet thief isn't manically swapping weapons / legends as often as possible because energy refill. Or like most other professions (including rev) in the game, weapon swapping to take maximum advantage of big attacks on long cooldowns. You just play, using whichever of your current 5 weapon abilities makes the most sense right now. And swap weapons only if that makes sense right now and it's not on cooldown. It's a different experience.

I haven't just "studied" databases as a "huge" part of a degree. I've built huge, complex ones for use in commercial applications. See, there you demonstrate that you don't know what you're talking about. Completely irrespective of whatever claims ANet makes about whether race change is technically possible, race is a value in the character database. There's no such thing as "important" and "unimportant" values. Absolutely every detail about your character - name, race, appearance, inventory, quest and map completion, wallet etc. is all values in the database. And all of those values can be changed easily and risk free. In fact every time your inventory, quest, map or wallet changes, the database is updated. Automatically and without glitching constantly. Because under the hood, that's what an online game is. Pretty much this or something like it.

Yes and no. There are 9 professions and purchased accounts only get 5 character slots. Freebulites only 2. So to experience every profession you gotta shell out money. Or start deleting characters. And many gem store upgrades, eg. bag slot upgrades, are character specific. That said, the game is playable without those unlocks. Maybe if you have multiple email accounts, use them to sign up for multiple GW2 accounts and try out all the professions across those. Even though the trait system doesn't fully unlock until near max level and traits do make a big difference sometimes, this isn't one of those games where profs are completely different at max level compared to lower ones.

Cool. Just your having mentioned enjoyed playing healers in other online games, it's important to know that healing in GW2 is totally different. In other games with traditional trinity, threat mechanics, group content where everyone doesn't melee and resources like mana, healing is much more strategic and involved. In GW2 it's not that. Guardian was my first main and primarily my responsibility was to spam the staff swiftness aoe buff to help everyone run past trash mobs to get straight to the bosses with their sweet, sweet loot. Bit of a yawn. Guardian mace has, I think one of it not the strongest AOE HoT which you can keep up up perma. With group content being a melee huddle affair, that's where the heal action is at. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Symbol_of_Faith Lots of professions have buffs but their method of application varies. Revenant has toggles with an energy upkeep cost, which is very unlike other professions who have buffs spread across a range of weapon and utility abilities, and they're all on cooldowns. On top of those there's field buffs. Thieves might not appear to be especially bufftastic but they're the only profession with a cooldown free blast finisher, on their shortbow. https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Combo IMO mesmers have far and away the prettiest effects in the game. Especially if you dress and arm yourself well, cos your phantasms use your appearance. Though I don't enjoy playing them. GW2 ability design has a lot of pretzel shapes - by which I mean rather than just executing one ability to get one effect, many abilities have multiple effects, traits can change those, and there's chains and fields and in the case of mesmer, shatter as well. At least last time I played my mesmer - which was years ago - it was the most twisted profession. My brain always felt like it needed a shower after playing it. Super gorgeous to look at that though. While I too am curious about the new elite specs, the next expansion won't launch until next year. And speaking from personal experience, sometimes the devil is in details which aren't released until long after reveal. A spirit summoning revenant legend. Oooh. That tickled my fancy. But eventually they revealed that those spirits are on cooldowns. Which I hate and which the base profession legendary utilities are largely free of. I recommend making a decision based on what's there now.

Signet (passives) don't have cooldowns. So yes, you can play thieves almost entirely cooldown free. There's just the heal - which if you play well enough you rarely need to use anyway. And the elite, which doesn't need to be used except for the rare boss fight or group content. And yes, I'd LOVE for revenant weapon abilities to be cooldown free and just use energy. That would be brilliant but is sadly extremely unlikely to happen. Even if we generously accept your first assertion as true, no, cooldowns don't help at all. They just reduce the game to playing cooldown whack-a-mole with the UI. It's not so bad with open world content and quick and easy fights, but in longer fights which are common in group content, the tedium sets in fast.

Thank you. I always appreciate a chuckle. You completely randomly accuse me of being dishonest. Attempt to justify this by claiming that my problem is with the concept. Which is..... exactly what I said. So how exactly was I dishonest? And good gracious, obviously you're completely wrong about theme not mattering. Theme is fundamental! This is a graphical RPG. Theme and visuals are extremely important.

You quite obviously didn't. Absolutely nothing I said involved, as you claimed, pets getting a bigger role. Quote me saying that. You can't because I didn't. What I suggested was using the pet system and UI to allow rangers to also attune to different spirits for use with the druid form.

I can relate to this. Especially as someone who enjoys and mostly played healer, GW2's instanced content is awful. I haven't really enjoyed playing group content in any MMO since WOW and SWTOR, which is an unabashed WOW clone. Many developers incorrectly attributed GW2's early success to their doing away with healers and copied that to varying extents.

It'll never happen but... Stip revenant of all cooldowns and pretzel shaped mechanics. If their abilities just worked as advertised and sensibly, and if I could cast them whenever I wanted assuming I had sufficient energy, that would be marvellous.